Cast

A triple hunting license — to increase delivery capacity, cast for customers and accelerate drilling — has been granted to the leaders of the next growth planned for natural gas production offshore of Nova Scotia, Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline (M&NP) and EnCana Corp.

A triple hunting license — to increase delivery capacity, cast for customers and accelerate drilling — has been granted to the leaders of the next growth planned for natural gas production offshore of Nova Scotia, Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline (M&NP) and EnCana Corp.

Is there any corner of the U.S. society that hasn’t been touched by the so-called “Enron Effect”? Even the nation’s “fourth estate,” daily newspapers, reported that business editors now are taking a new, harder look at the companies they cover to avoid any more surprises among bastions of commerce, according to a report in this week’s (March 11) newspaper industry magazine Editor & Publisher.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has obtained videotapes that he said show former CEO Jeffrey K. Skilling was aware of accounting problems at Enron Corp. at least ten months before he resigned from the company in August 2001 — a claim he denied when he testified before a House subcommittee earlier this month.

California’s debacle followed by Enron’s scandal has cast a broad shadow over state and federal energy initiatives this year, according to former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA), speaking last Thursday at a two-day industry conference in Seattle, “Buying and Selling Power in the West.”

California’s debacle followed by Enron’s scandal has cast a broad shadow over state and federal energy initiatives this year, according to former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA), speaking Thursday at a two-day industry conference in Seattle, “Buying and Selling Power in the West.”

Dynegy Inc., cast by Enron Corp. as the villain in its bankruptcy filing, has aggressively countered every move by its former rival, and Thursday filed a motion requesting the bankruptcy case be moved to Houston, where both of the companies are headquartered. Dynegy, facing a $10 billion breach of contract lawsuit that Enron incorporated into its bankruptcy proceedings on Dec. 2, filed papers with New York Judge Arthur Gonzalez, noting that Enron’s decision to file in the Southern District of New York was “a classic example of the type of forum shopping that should not be condoned.”

Dynegy Inc., cast by Enron Corp. as the villain in its bankruptcy filing, has aggressively countered every move by its former rival, and late last week filed a motion requesting the bankruptcy case be moved to Houston, where both of the companies are headquartered. Dynegy, facing a $10 billion breach of contract lawsuit that Enron incorporated into its bankruptcy proceedings on Dec. 2, filed papers with New York Judge Arthur Gonzalez, noting that Enron’s decision to file in the Southern District of New York was “a classic example of the type of forum shopping that should not be condoned.”

AES Corp. disclosed in a regulatory filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Department of Justice (DOJ) last month commenced an antitrust investigation related to an agreement between AES Southland LLC and Williams Energy Services Co. The DOJ alleges that the agreement limits the expansion of electric generating capacity at or near certain plants owned by AES Southland. In connection with the investigation, the DOJ sent a civil investigative demand to AES Southland requesting the answer to certain interrogatories and the production of documents. AES Southland is cooperating with the terms of the civil investigative demand, AES noted. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in March of this year ordered Williams Energy Marketing & Trading and AES Southland to justify why they should not be found to have violated the Federal Power Act (FPA) by engaging in actions to drive up power prices in the California bulk market and potentially compromising the reliability of the transmission network (see Daily GPI, March 15). In California, Williams markets power produced from two generating units owned by AES. FERC said its investigation showed that Williams and AES appeared to have financial incentive to prolong outages from the two generating units to drive up prices.